Today we held our annual Remembrance Day assembly. The whole school took part, including our youngest reception children. We learnt all about the grave of the Unknown Warrior in Westminster Cathedral. The children observed a minutes silence beautifully and then laid their Poppies by the Cenotaph.

As another academic year draws to a close, I thought it may be a good idea to share with you, from a service family’s perspective, the things that we have done ‘behind the scenes’ for and with our children from service backgrounds.

The main role of a support worker involved with service children is to help make transition between schools as smooth as possible. This is never going to be easy as children will always find it difficult to leave friends behind, but as soon as we know that a move is imminent we can start working with the child to make it a more exciting prospect. We do this in a number of ways; from googling the new school and checking out the uniform and class names, to filling in the booklets with all the information about friends to take with them and for talking to your child about how they feel. For new children, it is just as difficult to learn how to settle at possibly ‘yet another new school.’ I am pleased to say that our Harestock children are excellent at welcoming in to the class new faces and making them feel included right from the start. Every new child is allocated a ‘Buddy’ for the first few days or until they have found their feet and are confident to make friends on their own. We bring new families up to date with as much curriculum information as possible, including information regarding year group trips and in-school events.

New junior children are assessed in reading, comprehension and maths when they arrive at school (usually within the first week) to ensure they have been placed in the correct classes for English and Maths. If we find that a child has some gaps in their learning due to the transient nature of their education, small intervention groups are run to help fill these gaps.

We keep up to date with any new directives for our service community by attending SCISS (Service Children in State Schools) conferences. This year our Headteacher, Mrs Sankey, and our Chair of Governors, Mrs Gregory, attended the National conference in London. They were both very proud to report back that we as a school are not only doing what is expected but are actually doing things that other schools are yet to put in place to support service children.

As the time of transition approaches, some of our service children have been given extra visits to the new senior schools as we are aware that another move could be unsettling even though it is with their peers.

We have also played an active role in recognising our service personnel both past and present. We held our annual Remembrance day assembly culminating in the whole school laying a Poppy at our cenotaph; a very poignant day. Just last week we also took part in the RBL ‘Every man remembered.’ All our junior children during PHSE lessons placed a virtual Poppy on the map to remember a WW1 soldier that lost his life in that historic battle.

We have had special visitors to the school sharing their army experiences. Warrant Officer Class 2 Bailey, Band Sergeant Major of the Welsh Guards, came in to school to talk about ceremonial duties and of course show off his bearskin (and it’s real bearskin too!) He also taught some of our infants the trick to marching and saluting with military precision.

Mr Grobler an ex-serviceman and dad of one of our children, was selected to represent Team GB at the Invictus games. We were lucky enough to have him bring his bronze medals into school and hear him talk about his sport of Archery and see his amazing equipment.All in all it has been a packed year with some very special highlights.

On Friday 1st July, it is the 100th anniversary of The Battle of the Somme. Some of the junior children have been finding out about the Battle and have had the opportunity to commemorate some of the men and women who lost their lives – over 1 million Commonwealth Service men and women lost their lives during the First World War.

Every Man Remembered is an opportunity for you to be part of a great collective act of Remembrance. By visiting www.everymanremembered.org you can choose to commemorate someone you know (a relative or person on your local war memorial) or someone randomly selected for you.

Today we held our annual Remembrance Day assembly. The whole school took part, including our youngest reception children. We saw why the Poppy is the symbol of Remembrance and how all the valuable contributions you make to the appeal are used to help families, injured service personnel of both past and present conflicts. The children observed a minutes silence beautifully and then laid their Poppies by the Cenotaph.